Sunday, 14 October 2012

A couple of weeks ago we spent a great day at the Glee Club in Nottingham (where The Gilded Merkin and Dr Sketchy's are held), filming four of my favourite acts and some of my newly acquired fire skills.

Tuesday, 11 September 2012

I've had a busy old weekend! On Saturday I was performing at a corporate team building event with the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang crew at the beautiful Ingestre Hall in Stoke. It was the second time I had performed in this stunning building, the first being at Sherry Trifle's wedding with Missy Malone last year.

Ingestre Hall - image pinched from Sherry Trifle's blog!

The company "Quick Release" had loads of fun Bond themed activities planned for their lucky employees, from helicopter rides to nearby shooting ranges, archery, ninja games and of course the "From Russia with Love" Kiss Kiss Bang Bang burlesque show.

When I arrived Sherry and I put our faces on and squeezed into posh frocks waiting for the choppers to ferry in the hoardes for our planned Bond photoshoot with Rebecca Cooper. It was a fun hour of playing with fake guns and fake martinis!

This gun was really a lighter

Sherry and I playing with firearms

Darren and Suze from local film company Junction15 were there making a mini Bond film for QR, which I got roped into helping out with (ok, that's a fib, I volunteered and LOVED it). My Bond girl role involved slipping a suspect powder into Bond's drink and later smashing him over the head with a bottle (sugar glass, not real).

Daggers smash!

The show was a lot of fun and starred Sherry, Stage Door Johnny and myself as well as a set by Johnny and the Speedos. Everyone got up for a dance and we stayed up until the small hours playing roulette in the basement.

With the ever so lovely Stage Door Johnny

Backstage. Lady Liberty vs The Cobra Woman

I didn't do very well!

After a few hours sleep we were up again and joining in the fun with the QR guys. I used to love archery but hadn't done it for a long time. After missing the target completely with my first few arrows I soon got the hang of it!

Sherry and I playing Robin Hood

At the end of the afternoon we were invited to sit in on the company's "de-briefing" meeting and were presented with a huge bouquet of flowers each, which was a lovely surprise!

Sherry and I then scooted up to Lichfield for our second show of the weekend. A charity show run by Cherry Vanilla.

We were there with comedienne Barbara Nice and it was lovely to hang out backstage chatting the evening away until we performed.

I was very glad to be back in my own bed on Sunday night and very unimpressed to have to emerge again for work on Monday morning!

Thursday, 9 August 2012

A couple of weeks ago I spent a few hot and smokey hours in a warehouse in Birmingham learning the basics of working with fire. It's a skill I've been wanting to learn for such a long time and I was so excited to finally get started! The workshop was run by Red Sarah, a very well known and respected circus and burlesque performer from London.

There were four of us in the class and after running through all the health and safety issues and selecting our equipment we took it in turns to get the feel of the fire on our skin, building up our confidence and reducing our arm hair as we went! The first time I touched the wick to my tongue was a strange experience but the taste wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting and I managed to extinguish the fire on my first try at eating it *smug*.

It was such a fun afternoon and I highly recommend Sarah as a teacher if anyone else is thinking of having a go. Details of her workshops are on her website (linked above).

Lovely wooden handle fire sticks bought from Red Sarah

New use for a champagne ice bucket!

Essential fire gear

I took a little video at the end of the afternoon but it won't load here :( I'll try and fix that and post it later.

I've been practising whenever I can in my garden, inbetween the torrential rain and gail force winds, and I think I've freaked my neighbours out a little.... and the dog. So watch this space for a fire eating burlesque act. I already have a great idea in my head and have started making the costume already!

This Saturday is our 3rd birthday at Dr Sketchy's Nottingham! We have performances from Marianne Cheesecake and Coco Malone and modelling from Eliza DeLite. We have so many surprises in store and a prize table busting at the seams with goodies for our audience, including another massive stack of comics from our newest sponsor Page45, the only place to get comics in Nottingham (and I'm not just saying that because they sponsor our show, they are truly awesome and really know their stuff!)

Friday, 13 July 2012

It's been a few days since these two shows but I've been taking a well earned rest!
Last Friday I took a trip a little way down the M1 to Leicester, to perform at a show called ElectroTease run by Eliza DeLite.

It was lovely to see Eliza, Rose and Constance again and meet the other ladies on the bill.

Eliza, Constance and I backstage in our "dressing cave"

This was such a fun show and the audience were lovely. I even went out and had a quick dance afterwards (in my balloon pop costume as I had forgotten to take a dress with me!)

Here's one of my favourite shots from the night, taken by Grace Elkin, mid confetti puff!

Copyright Grace Elkin

After the show I dashed to Nottingham to pick up Missy Malone at The Queen of Clubs, a new gay bar that's just opened, where she'd been performing that evening. I'll be there myself next week so it was lovely to meet the guys who run it. There were some very fancy looking drag queens in that place! Then we headed back to mine for puppy cuddles and tea.

Rocket the wonder dog

The next morning we popped into Hopkinson's before Missy caught her train to London. This was shamefully the first time I'd set foot in there but I'll definitely be going back again! I came away with a set of stem rose glasses, some cute green vintage buttons and this gorgeous red vanity case.

On Sunday, after months of planning and promoting, it was time for the debut Gilded Merkin show!

It's fair to say I was a bit of a nervous wreck before the show started but there was far too much to do for that to get in the way! I will admit to running downstairs at one point, through the huge queue that was forming, to find my mum and get a quick "good luck" hug before we opened the doors!

Everything went so well, far better than I could have hoped for, the venue was absolutely rammed with people and the show ran without a hitch and perfectly to time! It's not surprising really though considering the performers I was working with, all total pro's, and the staff at The Glee Club who were all fantastic!

More great news is that as of today we have our first sponsor, BooBoo Kitty Couture, who will be giving us a made to measure pencil skirt for one lucky winner at the event! So dress to impress ladies as we'll be doing a best dressed competition to decide who gets it. I promise I will think of a suitable prize for the gents in the audience too so no slacking lads!

Doors open at 6:30pm and tickets are selling really well for this 300 seat venue so be quick about it if you want to come! It's only £15 for this huge show. You won't want to miss it!

For those who have never been to a Dr Sketchy's event and are interested in finding out more here's a link to the main website www.drsketchy.com There are branches all over the world and hopefully one near you!

I was going to get some shots of us together with the performers/models but it totally slipped my mind. I did manage to take a few shots during the show though and here they are, along with some professional shots from our photographer Spike aka Vapour Trail Photography....

First up we started off with some short 5 minute poses from Emerald. I bet her arms ached after this one!

Emerald Ace

Emerald Ace by Vapour Trail Photography

Our first performance of the afternoon was from Velma, with her organ grinder monkey act (one of my favourites), a statement on the daily trudge of the 9 to 5!

Velma Von Bon Bon by Vapour Trail Photography

Afterwards she held this pose for 15 minutes and picked a couple of artists to win prizes from our sponsors, a hefty stack of comics from Page 45 and a hair scarf from Diablo Jo.

Velma Von Bon Bon

Our second performance was from Beatrix, with the act that got her through the first round of Britain's Got Talent Series 6, "Hey Bellboy", and which left me momentarily tongue tied after she came off stage!

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Beatrix Von Bourbon by Vapour Trail Photography

She then held a 15 minute pose in the tiniest set of pasties and thong I think I've ever seen! With more comics, a Rockalily lipstick and Little Miss Delicious hair clip given away to our eager artists.

Thursday, 31 May 2012

Today I had the pleasure of hanging out with Diva Hollywood, "the crip with a whip". After a slow start to the morning (I blame the Moscow Mules we drank the night before) we headed to my local antiques centre for a rummage. Unfortunately we didn't find anything that took our fancy, nothing that was within our budget anyway, so we took a drive into Nottingham to enjoy the sunshine.

Our first stop was the Alley Cafe, the best veggie/vegan eatery. I would post pics of our delicious food but it didn't last long enough to take any. What can I say, antiques rummaging is hard work! So here's a photo of the menu cover instead...

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With very full bellies we pottered around a few more shops and then headed back to my sun-trap of a garden to play with these...

But not without wearing the proper protection...

Indiana Jones eat your heart out!

It took a few attempts and lots of intent staring at Diva while she showed me the motions but I managed to get a few good cracks in!

Diva doing her thing

I found the smaller whip much easier to crack but it was also a lot faster and I managed to give myself a good welt on the back of the calf!

Battle scars

I totally failed at trying a more complicated trick and decided to call it quits before I lost an eye. I'll leave whips to the professionals!